Porsche doubles R&D budget for electric cars

In less than two years, sports car manufacturer Porsche plans to launch its first purely electric model on the market. Now the company is stepping on the gas pedal in research and development.

According to media reports, Porsche’s Supervisory Board has given the go-ahead for the Executive Board's plans to double the budget for research and development in the field of electromobility. CEO Oliver Blume told the German press agency dpa that the company now has six billion euros at its disposal for the development of new electric cars and related business models. The money will be used primarily for hybrid versions of existing Porsche models as well as for the development of completely new cars with fully electric drive. "We will enter new market segments, but we will also electrify existing models," Blume said.

Porsche's first battery-electric-powered car, the Mission E model, is due to be launched on the market at the end of 2019. According to Blume, the company is currently examining which variants would make sense. "We already have ideas about what else we can do on the basis of Mission E," said Blume. According to current plans, Porsche will build 20,000 Mission E units per year. The Porsche CEO explained that interest in the electric vehicle, which was described by some sections of the press as a "Tesla killer", was very high, especially in the USA.

In Germany, acceptance of electromobility is progressing more slowly, said Blume. This is largely due to the fact that there are still large gaps in the charging network. However, also the filling station network for conventional vehicles was not created overnight, but in parallel with the number of registered cars. This will also be the case for electromobility, said Blume.

Porsche will also continue to build conventional powertrains with combustion engines. This also applies to diesel. As a company in the Volkswagen Group, Porsche had sourced its diesel engines from its sister company Audi in recent years and was thus affected by the diesel scandal just as much as all other VW Group brands.